I worked in Japan for more than 12 years in the eighties and nineties, in Osaka, Nagoya and Tokyo with the U. S. State Department, Citibank and Merrill Lynch. After many more years in China in banking (Deutsche Bank and Ping An Bank) and consulting, I am back in Tokyo conducting the business of Yangtze Century Ltd. (Hong Kong/Shanghai) and producing this blog. E-mail me at smharnerco@yahoo.com.

Encomia to Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State are focusing on her style and diligence, not on accomplishments, which are few, let alone grand strategic

WASHINGTON - SEPTEMBER 01: U.S. President Barack Obama (R), followed by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (L) and Special Envoy for the Middle East George Mitchell (2nd L), as he approaches the podium in the Rose Garden for statement after bilateral meetings with leaders of Middle East countries, including Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan�s King Abdullah II, September 1, 2010 in Washington, DC. The White House has kicked off a new round of direct peace talks for the Middle East, the first one in more than 18 months. (Image credit: Getty Images North America via @daylife)

initiatives, of which there were none, or at least none that lasted more than a few hopeful months.

As viewed from the White House, it seems that Clinton’s greatest contribution—as described in an article by Paul Richter in the January 28 Los Angeles Times—was “insisting on no infighting between her loyalists at the State Department and Obama’s team.”

“President Obama has tightly controlled foreign policy in the last four years—more so even than his recent predecessors,” writes Richter. Obama’s appointment of Hillary–“a hard worker and team player”—was clearly the most inspired and successful of his first term.

Getting beyond the superficial to the substantive, that U.S. foreign policy has been rudderless, lacking (or changing) direction, and devoid of any strategic plan under President Obama has long been painfully apparent, and nowhere more so than toward East Asia, ostensibly the region identified as America’s vital strategic national interest, to which we are “pivoting” our unchallengeable military power.

East Asia is a bit vague. The two countries in Asia that really count for the U.S. from either a strategic geopolitical and economic standpoint are Japan and China. Especially China. I will assert that the record of the Obama presidency and Hillary tenure at State in formulating a workable strategic plan for adjusting to new and largely benign regional developments and trends and fashioning and implementing policies to advance the strategy against either China or Japan—or more correctly in respect of both, because U.S.-China-Japan relations are one great undulating feedback loop of influences, emotions, and interests—has been one of failure, if not dangerously backsliding retrogression.

We can start with the ‘pivot’. Writing in the November/December 2012 issue of Foreign Affairs, Boston College professor of political science and associate at the John K. Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University, Robert S. Ross, elaborates why the ‘pivot’—as a counterpoint to perceived Chinese assertiveness–is both unnecessary and counterproductive.

Ross shows that the ‘pivot’—with its emphasis on military force and strengthening of post-WWII and Cold War alliances—evidences nothing so much as a simplistic, insensible, seemingly almost inertial impulse, that can hardly be expected to produce anything but the opposite of the intended result, if the intended result is a workable longer term modus vivendi with China. What seems to be at work here is a Pentagon bureaucracy and military special interest-driven attempt to capture negotiating “high ground.” That the strategy prevailed suggests to me the absence of any heavyweight East Asian strategic thinkers in Hillary’s “team player” State Department or in Obama’s anti-strategic, political White House.

For a longer and in many ways better critique of U.S. East Asian policy I recommend Cato Institute Policy Analysis Paper No. 717, dated January 8, 2013, entitled “China, America, and the Pivot to Asia,” by Justin Logan. Logan writes about “a dangerous contradiction at the heart of America’s China policy.” Logan chronicles the evolution since the presidency of George Bush Sr. of the U.S. “engagement” policy toward China which, and particularly from the Clinton presidency, has been increasingly combined with an elementally contradictory policy of geopolitical/military containment. Combine the words of engagement and containment and you get “congagement.” Writes Logan, “Congagement for all intents and purposes has been America’s China policy since at least the end of the Cold War.”

“U.S. foreign policy in Asia is plagued by three problems: First, Washington’s policy centers on a contradiction: making China more powerful while seeking to make it act as though it is weak [and will remain so]. The ‘containment’ and ‘engagement’ aspects of the policy countervail one another. Second, the policy of ‘reassuring’ out allies forces the United States to carry a disproportionate share of the growing burden of containing China. Finally, although Washington agrees with the pessimists that China’s growing military power is a problem, no one has specified how precisely even a very militarily powerful China would directly threaten U.S. national security.”

There is so much in Logan’s paper that deserves appreciation. Just one example: pointing out that roughly 40 percent of China’s oil comes by sea, and that China at present does not control the routes through which that oil passes. For alarmists about the Chinese naval buildup, the question is under what possible regional or global security system would China remain comfortable with this level of strategic and economic vulnerability. It would certainly not be a system of continued U.S.-centered regional military alliances ever more clearly aimed at containing China.

This blog is mainly about Japan and Japan’s future. The presentation above is required because in myriad ways—both malevolent and benign—Japan is currently bound by its geopolitical and security relationship with the U.S., as well as by ties with China, and—most critically now—by evolving geopolitical and strategic relations between Washington and Beijing.

Prime Minister Abe will finally get his audience with President Obama in the White House on February 21st or 22nd. High on Abe’s agenda will be U.S. support for Japan’s territorial claims in the East China Sea and strong reassurances of immutability of the U.S.-Japan security “alliance.”

He will not get the first of desires, and I wonder how long a Japanese leader will be getting the second. I believe the contradictions and elemental dysfunctionality of today’s U.S. policy toward China will become undeniable and that change may very well begin during Obama’s term. U.S. national interests require a new paradigm for strategic relations with China. Inevitably, this means also a new paradigm for strategic relations with Japan.

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It would be enlightening, to hold a international conference addressing the question: “How, exactly, does the USA contain China?” What are all the mechanisms, policies, measures, etc.? Is it different from containing the USSR? How? Why? It would be good to hear the Chinese views, as well as those of our friends and allies in Asia and elsewhere, adding their comments. Certainly the very good writers at China Daily could provide some insights. And perhaps a Chinese ‘think tank’ representative might let us know what the Chinese would prefer, and what irritates them most. I contend that we are not really trying to contain China in the Cold War sense of the word, but are trying to influence China’s behavior to 1) avoid / stop bullying its neighbors, 2) participate productively, maturely and responsibly in regional and global political and economic developments, and 3) prepare to begin playing a larger role commensurate with its capabilities and power. China’s self-image and views of its region and the rest of the world are still largely influenced by ancient perspectives and stories. Some of that is useful, but much can be considered very counterproductive and must change if China is to play a positive, constructive role in the region or even larger fora.

Thank you for the comment. I hope it is apparent that I do not agree with those who think there is a reason to “contain” China, whether by military, economic, or political means. I believe that the best chance for peace and prosperity in East Asia is a natural, organically evolving political, economic, and cultural order free of undue interference of outside foreign powers (I realize that this would be an order of China primus inter pares). Yes, I put the U.S. in the category of outside foreign power. So rather than strategies to contain China, a thoughtful strategic vision for regional and world peace and prosperity would be one in which the U.S. largely withdraws militarily from the Asian continent, and from Japan, and works to establish a “win-win” order among the major powers in region, China, Japan, and Russia. This is basically the framework proposed by National Australian University professor Hugh White in his excellent book: The China Choice: Why America Should Share Power. It is an ethos that I have also found in the work of Professor Yabuki Susumu and former Japanese career diplomat Magosaki Ukera (see previous blogs).

In other words you would be cool with a potential fascist and militaristic China taking over most of Asia. Using that argument, no need to have fought WWII (or WWI for that matter) if we had just let Germany expand naturally….

That would have worked out so well for the United States and our national security. Now if China adopts a democratic government and an understanding of the rule of law I might agree with you, but right now they don’t have that kind of government.

The only positive I could see in the U.S. leaving Japan, is that Japan would go nuclear within a year of our departure. South Korea of course would follow. So we would still have a cold war, just with a bunch of nuclear armed nations in Asia that all hate each other, not based on ideology (like the Soviet-US cold war) but worse, based on nationalism and ethnic background. That should work out great too for all involved!

China does not seem to be “expanding.” Sure, it has territorial disputes based on scraps of land that it sees to be rightly it’s own. But if you think that this parallels the actions of Nazi Germany, then I’m afraid that you have very little understanding of WWII. The problem that we seem to have in America is that we are looking for an enemy in China. We see our global dominance threatened by China’s rise, and so our natural reaction is to challenge it. It’s natural, although not very well thought out, to compare that challenge to WWII. But in fact, there are very few similarities.

This is either 1) an incredibly stupid analysis of China’s economic development based on questionable news sources; 2) Brainwashing by low-quality Western journalism; 3) an Internet troll.

Care to source your assertion?

On your argument, it might as well be said that US success is attributed to the extensive use of black slaves to cultivate its agricultural and manufacturing dominance in 19th/20th century. Presposterous!

How is China fascist, and Militaristic again? This is how westerners see China, or the east in general. Putting everything is their lense of the last 100 years of “their history”. China, Korea, and Japan have always existed independently, and this talk of the last 100 years is not relevant when we ought to look at the dynamics as it exist for the last 2000 years. The Japanese, and Koreans have always been part of the Chinese sinophere. They are viewed as the offspring of the parent( China). The only way is to see the relationship as one defined by family relationships. The sons must obey the father, and the father must be responsible for his sons. Japan, and Korea are not independent, but they are part of the Chinese family international order. The relationship is defined by propiety, and norms.

So, would Mr. Ross prefer that US military forces not play any role? Perhaps he might consider listening to the Vietnamese, who express their fears that China will make Vietnam China’s 30th province. Or other countries in the region who began to feel increasingly uncomfortable over the last 5 to 10 years due to Chinese expansion and bullying. Perhaps Mr. Ross believes the US really is trying to encircle China. That would explain Afghanistan, right? A good place from which to launch air strikes on critical Chinese targets in southwest China? Please will someone explain to me why college professors who often lack any experience in strategy, tactics, or diplomacy, and generally don’t know muzzle from butt plate, tend to make the US military the first target of their disdain. Perhaps they think the US should increase people diplomacy or Peace Corps activities, or maybe increased foreign aid. Anything but the military, because that will just upset the Chinese, and we don’t want to do that since China is the biggest gorilla on the block. Well sir, then I hope you will agree that it’s worth everybody’s effort to ensure that all the gorillas behave properly.

Using Gorillas to represent China is already placing china in a bad light. The truth is great powers bully to get their ways, and that is no different from what the west did in the last 500 years, and it is true today in the west( the US). The usage of “national interest” is simply to advance one ‘s own interest, and deny others.

Is China bad? A better question is: Is the US bad? The US is bad if it attempt to export poverty. If it seem to deny prosperity to others. If it attempt to keep others down. China on the other hand is not attempting to export poverty. The Chinese way is not to make other states poorer so to make themselves richer.

The best counter balance to a fast developing China at the global level is a prosperous, socially cohesive and powerful America. Unfortunately, as it stands today, the US has enormous domestic problems that threaten her continued prosperity and her global influence. So the top priority for the US is to address these domestic problems urgently and properly.

China as a developing country has many grave domestic problems too which she must address first before she could even think of foreign adventures. Her territorial disputes with some of her neighbours are carried forward from direct imperialist aggression against China in the centuries earlier on leaving borders disputed and undefined. The Beijing Government has already given up huge areas of Chinese territories in bilateral settlements with neighbouring countries. To appreciate this, just look at the Chinese territories under the Constitution of the Republic of China, the other name for China, under the rival Chinese government in Taipei, by clicking on the link below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ROC_Administrative_and_Claims.svg

Mr Stephen Harner is correct to point out that the best balance of forces in Asia is a natural one among the great powers in the region. An unnatural balance as the result of outside intervention is at best an unstable one. The moment the outside force is suddenly removed because of a crisis elsewhere (say, in the Middle East); the region would plunge into chaos as the sudden unbalanced forces would have to seek a new balance.